Dr Mary Kelly, the new director general of the Environmental Protection Agency, would have no problems living next door to a waste incinerator, she tells Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can't win. Industry says it's too tough on regulation while environmentalists say it has no teeth. But Dr Mary Kelly, its new director general, takes some comfort from this crossfire, as it shows the agency has achieved a certain balance.
Dr Kelly, who holds a PhD in chemistry from TCD, took over on May 20th from the EPA's first director general, the late Bill McCummiskey. For the previous seven years, she had been IBEC's environmental officer - so she knows the industrial sector and its track record from the inside.
She recalls that environmental regulation was "a complete unknown" for most companies in the early 1990s. "When I joined IBEC first, the environment was very rarely discussed at its national executive council, but by the time I left, it was almost constantly on the agenda," she says.
"There's been a huge change since IPC [integrated pollution control] licensing came in and it's now very much part of the way they do business.
"Some have had to invest millions in very sophisticated new technology to ensure that they're not causing environmental pollution."
Though some environmentalists would see Dr Kelly as a poacher-turned-gamekeeper, few could deny that she played a significant role in changing the mindset of industry while working for IBEC or doubt her commitment to achieving high environmental standards.
Becoming director general of the EPA has been "a big change" - especially as she is the first person from outside the public sector to enter its boardroom. The agency, with headquarters in Wexford, has 243 staff and offices in Dublin, Cork, Kilkenny, Castlebar and Monaghan.
Located in the grounds of Johnstown Castle, it was relocated there by local Labour TD, Brendan Howlin, when he was minister for the environment in the mid-1990s. Its headquarters, completed in 1998, is already too small; some 30 inspectors work in prefabs alongside.
Dr Kelly has joined the ranks of long-distance car commuters. Her husband, Dutch-born Dr Han Vos, is a professor of chemistry in DCU and continues to live in Clontarf with their son David (14) and daughter Johanna (11), while she spends three nights a week in Co Wexford.
"I would much prefer to do it by rail, but the Dublin-Rosslare line is not business hours-friendly," she says. "But when I went to visit all the regional offices in September, I took the train to Cork and Castlebar. I use the train as much as I can - you can get a lot of work done on it."
One of her principal objectives is to make the EPA "a good bit more visible" and also to put the environment more on the agenda of other departments and agencies. "A lot of that sort of work has to be done in Dublin, so I'm in our office in Clonskeagh maybe two days a week."
The agency's periodic State of the Environment reports and the monitoring data it produces are meant to inform public policy, but there is still that invisibility problem. "I don't think people know what we do and we get blamed for a lot of things for which we're not responsible." She believes the EPA has been very effective, particularly in performing its regulatory role.
"It's done a great job of licensing. Well over 500 IPC licences have been granted across all sectors of industry as well as 120 waste licences, in what is a pretty problematic area."
Dr Kelly agrees that some environmental NGOs (non-governmental organisations) perceive it to be merely an "industry-minding" agency. "But if you talk to people on the industry side, they complain that it's being swayed by the NGOs, so we must be half-way down the middle."
So is the agency too lenient in giving industries too long to comply with licence conditions? "You have to be reasonable and give them a certain amount of time to install new technology, but you also have to be certain environmental pollution is not happening," she says.
But shouldn't the EPA be seen to crack the whip more? "You mean 'heads on spikes', that sort of thing? I'm not sure that's our ambition - but protection of the environment is. We have to try to get them to change what they're doing and do it properly so there is no pollution." The agency generally takes prosecutions in the District Court, because it would have to "compete with murder, rape and pillage" to go any higher.
"Cases take ages to come to fruition and, by then, the company involved has copped itself on and done whatever needs to be done."
A file is being prepared for the DPP on Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in Newbridge, Co Kildare, where hormone-infected waste found its way into animal feed exported to Belgium and the Netherlands. This was a "big scandal", Dr Kelly says, "something that should not have happened". Wyeth's licence was "very strict", but unless an inspector was "standing in the factory all day, every day" the mis-classification of waste would not have been detected. "As soon as the problem was identified, we were in a position to do something about it", she says.
Asked about the animal health issue in Askeaton, Co Limerick, she welcomed the latest IFA-commissioned analysis of an EPA report that discounted airborne industrial pollution as a primary factor. "We're not holed below the water line, because it accepts much of what we said".
On waste management in general, Dr Kelly denies that the EPA is "soft" on local authorities for breaches in landfill site licences. "I think we've taken quite a few cases. For example, we prosecuted South Dublin County Council over its waste transfer station in Ballymount." She is encouraged by the tough line now being taken by judges on illegal dumps. In one case before the District Court in Naas, involving Nephin Trading, the judge felt the operation of an illegal landfill site was so serious that it should be referred to the DPP for prosecution.
In most cases, however, it falls to local authorities to enforce the laws against illegal dumping. "If a site is not licensed by us - and illegal sites are not, by definition - it's up to them. But we are prepared to give them whatever assistance they need in terms of expert analysis."
Dr Kelly says one of the EPA's difficulties in entering the public debate on waste disposal is that the agency must adjudicate on licence applications for thermal treatment facilities, so "taking a stand may compromise our ability to say yes or no". Each application has to be approached with an open mind. "We have licensed nine or 10 incinerators for industry and they're all working away quietly in the background under very strict regulation from us. So that in itself is an endorsement of incineration as a valid technology." She agrees that waste incineration is "such an emotive issue" and that scientific evidence alone will not dispel public fears. "Really, what needs to happen for people to believe in it is to have a fully-functioning incinerator that isn't causing any problems," she says.
Dr Kelly makes it clear she has no fears about the incineration of municipal waste as an alternative to landfill. "Personally, I would prefer to live beside an incinerator than a landfill site. But we have got to make sure if we do licence them that they work without a glitch." The EPA is currently considering Indaver's licence application for its proposed incinerator at Carranstown, Co Meath, which is also before An Bord Pleanála. "We may hold an oral hearing, though we don't have many." It has held just three so far this year, of which two involved landfills.
The agency holds a licensing board meeting every Tuesday. However, compared to An Bord Pleanála's often high-profile planning decisions, Dr Kelly says most of the licence applications coming before the EPA are "non-controversial bread-and-butter stuff" that would not make big news. She agrees that the EPA's five-strong board sometimes grants wastelicences against the advice of an inspector or even Anne Butler, the director with responsibility for waste. These include controversial landfill sites at Kilbarry, in Co Waterford, and Carrowbrowne, in Co Galway.
"We're similar to An Bord Pleanála in that respect", she says. "Often, it has to do with taking a broader view that goes beyond the technical detail as well as the national context. Sometimes, we would go against a recommendation because there's nowhere else to put the waste." Meanwhile, EPA inspectors are scouring the countryside in search of "a whole rake of piggeries above a certain size that have been loathe to seek licences", as Dr Kelly puts it. "These are industrial farms and a couple of cases a month are being considered for prosecution."
A new EPA Bill will tweak the agency's functions to take account of the EU directive on integrated pollution prevention and control, which was to have been implemented in 1999, as well as to give it a role in monitoring carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Traffic is now the fastest growing contributor to Ireland's emissions of greenhouse gases. "With car ownership here below the EU average, common sense would say we're only heading in one direction - and that's up," Dr Kelly says. However, the EPA has no "lever" on transport.
Next year, the agency will be marking its 10th anniversary. "We're reviewing what we're doing and how well we're doing it at the moment," she says, while remaining reasonably optimistic that environmental protection in Ireland will reach a higher plane in the next decade.